


Poltergeists for Sidekicks

by pluviales



Series: Holzbert Collection [2]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Cute Ending, F/F, Fluff, Meet-Cute, and anyway this is cute and, and very gay as always, holtz is a ghost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7726198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluviales/pseuds/pluviales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erin and Abby are thrilled to move into a creepy old house, whose current owner-slash-realtor tells them all about its spooky history.</p><p>They're desperate to gain some supernatural experience — and when Erin finds an unexpected visitor in her bedroom one night, that's just what she gets.</p><p>(A cute whole-team AU, where Holtz is the friendly ghost and Patty the unexpected roommate.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poltergeists for Sidekicks

**Author's Note:**

> following the really encouraging response to my first holtzbert fic (and some hefty doses of inspiration: i've got another chapter-fic and a few one-shots in the works!) i thought i'd write another.
> 
> i hope you all enjoy the read!

The realtor of their new house to-be skidded around the corner in a hearse, and Erin and Abby knew they'd made the right choice. Standing with nervous jitters on the sidewalk, their backs turned to the imposing, if a little rusty, gates to the 19th-century mansion behind them, the two scientists and firm believers in the paranormal (and all things weird, as evidenced by their unbridled glee at the hearse) watched as the driver screeched to a halt and climbed out of the car, holding her hands up in surrender.

"Oh _man_ , I am _so_ sorry guys, have y'all been waiting long? The subway line was closed for maintenance so I had to borrow my uncle's hearse—" affable and instantly endearing, she nodded her head in gratitude at the women excusing her and held out her hand. "Patty Tolan," she smiled. "So —" she clapped her hands together and double-pointed to the house "—you two ready to check it out?"

Despite their wizened appearance, the copper-tinged gates unlocked smoothly with Patty's key: Abby and Erin shared a look of mild disappointment, but were soon cheered up by an ear-splitting screech as they were wrought open. (It was practically a prerequisite, after all, for a spooky house to have spooky gates.) The gravel path to the front porch crunched beneath their foot- and heel-steps, and was lined with _Edward Scissorhands_ -esque topiaries which, though clearly cared for to some extent, had branches exposed and patches of leaf missing. 

"I know the garden's a little worse for wear," Patty explained as she led them to the porch steps. "I really should've hired a gardener, but who has the money for a _gardener_ these days? Not that, uh, the house is expensive to maintain or anything," she added hastily, realising that she wasn't selling the place all too well. Hell, selling houses wasn't her profession or anything — she just needed to move somewhere smaller, more practical for a single woman, a place that she'd not bought in her early twenties just because it looked _historic_ (which was, ironically, the exact reason why Abby and Erin were pursuing the house now, in their mid-thirties, only more for _eeriness_ than history).

Even with Patty's less-than-gleaming (but honest, at least) review of the house, the two scientists couldn't help but buzz and beam throughout their visit. Breckenridge Mansion, named for its original occupants and renovators, as Patty — a very keen historian, it turned out, who dreamt of working for the Museum of the City of New York — explained, was early nineteenth-century and once the social hub of the neighbourhood. Its aristocratic owners had been wholly dedicated to polite society, hosting balls and entertaining innumerable illustrious visitors in their parlour. Their granddaughter, on the other hand ("...or one of 'em, at least, since people in those days all had a _bunch_ of kids") was notably ostracised from the society gatherings, giving pause to many sinister myths and legends about her life: that she was a witch, that her own mother had buried her beneath the ballroom floorboards, even that she was a vampiress. 

Needless to say, such information was met with delight by the prospective new tenants, whose shrieks of joy had Patty raising an eyebrow. At the end of their tour of a house which, despite its pedigree and considerable size, was relatively inexpensive to rent — a peculiarity which only bolstered the spooky theories of its heritage even more, and Erin and Abby's eagerness in turn — Patty concluded: "This is the point in the movies where the realtor warns y'all about hauntings, right? But I'm not even gonna bother with that, since you two aren't just the obtuse white people who move in anyway — you guys are _looking_ to be terrorised in here. So if you're okay with a little mildew from time to time... I'd say it's a perfect match."

 

They'd been living in Breckenridge Mansion for over a week without any suspicious occurrences. Convinced, therefore, that their ghosts-in-residence must be shy, Abby had set up a camcorder on a table beneath the window, leaving it to record while they were out at work.

Erin had scarcely stepped through the door in the evening before being yanked into the sitting room by Abby, who was yammering excitedly and pointing at the side-table. Her breath hitched: the camcorder was lying on its side, knocked over — it _had_ to be ghost presence; she clutched Abby's shoulder —

—until every shred of her agitation dissipated at once, extinguished like a match, and she pointed at the open window.

"Abby, it's blowing a gale out there!" The only outside force the camcorder had been in contact with, clearly, was the wind. "There were _literally_ hurricane warnings this morning."

"Dammit," Abby hissed.

"You know that's a major security risk too, right? Like," she looked about the room, with much of the original furnishings still intact: peeling French wallpaper, a bronze-gilded globe, sixteenth-century tapestry on the walls— "this is a _perfect_ place to rob. Huh — I can’t believe it’s never been robbed, actually..."

Within two days, however (and still, thankfully, without robbery), their downcast spirits were somewhat alleviated: over brunch on Saturday, as Erin confessed that _Twilight_ had been something of a guilty pleasure even though she knew, deep down, she _knew_ that it was terrible — a remorse with which Abby could empathise, reassuring her that everyone liked it, deep down — they'd each heard a low, anguished wail.

"Holy crap," Abby whispered. "Did you hear that? We're being haunted by Stephanie Meyer!"

"She's not dead, Abby, you can't— don't jinx her like that."

"But you heard it, right?"

Erin nodded, tracking her eyes about the walls. No further sound arose, but the two stayed quiet regardless, wishing with all their heart that they weren’t alone.

Sunday morning, likewise, came with a little curiosity: their radio broke suddenly, sparking and rattling violently on its way out, the moment that Erin switched over from the funk station.

"Guess Stephanie is a fan of DeBarge," said Abby, as Erin cradled her electroshocked hand and shot her a merciless look.

The day passed without further incident, and by the time she withdrew to bed, Erin's hand had returned to its usual size and colour. Yet she'd switched on her bedside lamp rather gingerly nonetheless, irrationally expecting a thousand volts to course through her body.

Un-electrocuted, thankfully, she was wrapping her hair about her fist to knot it up in a rough bun when—

"Sorry about the hand."

Erin's head jerked to attention — she had _distinctly_ heard a woman's voice. Low, more of a purr than a wail, this time. The voice of a Golden Age of Hollywood movie star; breathy, mischievous. Her eyes scoured the room, unblinking; her ears strained to listen in the semi-darkness.

"You just can't touch _Rhythm Of The Night_ , it's too good. How can you not like that song?"

"Hello?" Pulse quickened, she spoke quietly. Her thoughts rushed back to high school, to the nights that she swore she was crazy, that they were right, that she was making it up—

"Hi there."

Erin clapped a hand to her mouth and whimpered through it.

At the foot of her bed, lounging casually like a teenager at a slumber party — her cheek propped against her fist, elbow burying into the duvet, faraway eyes looking straight at her — was a ghost. She was a little younger, blonde while alive (in the moonlight and the afterlife, her hair shone almost silvery), wearing garish round glasses and denim overalls. A faint yellow glow clung all around her figure like an aura; soft, warm, playful.

She grinned, her right cheek dimpling, in the face of Erin's shock: a broad smile, which showed her teeth, immaculately white and—

The second gasp of the evening. _Fangs_. She had _fangs_.

"What—?" Erin stuttered, subconsciously bringing her fingertips to her own mouth in astonishment.

The ghost (or vampire? demon? _angel_?) frowned, briefly confused, before realising the source of Erin’s second shock: " _Ah_. Ye-eah," she drawled, drawing out the 'Y' and scrunching up her face in a grimace as she decided how to broach an explanation.

"Tried to join a vampire coven with my pals — they turned, I died halfway. I got the fangs, and perhaps I'm a _little_ paler—" a blasé, ironic shrug, an obvious joke: she was white as bone —"but that's about it. Mostly I’m just dead."

Met only with stunned silence, she was encouraged to elaborate. "When it happened, the head honcho explained that I'm stuck here, _tethered to the land_ or whatever, and then they turned into bats and just—" she made an 'O' with her lips and whistled, jerking her thumb to the bedroom's bay window behind her —"flew on outta here. Skedaddled." 

She scoffed, lifting an arm and tapping at her wrist. "The worst part? I can't even cut their friendship bracelets off. Oh, no. These babies are stuck here. For _life_."

Bewildered beyond her wits at the huffing, nonchalant ghost sprawled out over her bedspread, Erin let out an incredulous laugh.

"I guess," she said, delirious — how was she conversing with a ghost like they were high-school buddies? — and chuckling, "you mean ‘for _after_ -life’."

The spirit glowered at her, unblinking, until Erin's smile faded and she gulped: she hadn't meant to offend it— _her_ , and the last thing she wanted was to be murdered without even recording any of this.

To her immeasurable relief, the vampire-ghost suddenly dropped the act, cackling. "Your face! Oh god, I'm having fun." She brought two fingers to her temple and gave a salute, smirking. "Holtzmann."

"Holtzmann, okay. Hi. I'm—"

"Erin Gilbert, _Dr_. I already know your name," she winked, and Erin flushed. _Obviously_ , she kicked herself. _She's a ghost_.

For the next five hours, until dawn broke and slivers of light began to filter through the voile curtains — illuminating Holtz (she was 'Holtz', by four a.m.) as even more radiant — the pair chattered away atop Erin's bed, with the latter clambering up occasionally to retrieve some extract of her theorems, reciting her work to Holtz and marvelling at it being proven correct.

They talked about everything and anything: Holtz's life before death (she'd recently graduated, before the bite, as a nuclear engineer, and had been ghosting for three years); Erin's life and childhood; whether they'd ever remade _The X-Files_ (Holtz's bright-eyed rejoicing at this good news had brought her, for a moment, almost back to life; her skin had so warmed and shone with vivacity); and, since it was puzzling Erin, why Patty didn't seem to know about her.

At that question, Holtzmann's countenance had shifted to genuine sorrow. "Oh, boy," she sighed, "she was terrified of ghosts. You know that show, _Ghosthunters_? Came on the TV one day and she couldn't even watch the opening credits."

"But you're not _scary_ , Holtz," Erin had murmured, voice croaky and cracked by the lateness of the hour. "At all, really. You're a terrible ghost."

"I know, right? But I didn't want to chance it," she said. "God, I love that woman, though. Except for the opera."

"The opera?"

"Yeah," Holtzmann groaned. "She can't get enough of it. Plays — well, _played_ , it whenever she was reading, which was _twenty-four-seven_."

At this playful recollection, Erin was both amused and moved: her realisation of Holtz's loneliness, living hidden in the walls for three years, not once opening her mouth to speak, stirred Erin to a tender endearment.

Perhaps that was how they'd managed to talk for so long: at four thirty in the morning, it still didn't look like Holtz had any intention of stopping. And Erin would've let her continue, at that, had she not turned her thoughts to Abby and been wracked with guilt: she'd stayed awake all night with a ghost, a _real ghost_ , without waking her research partner, her best friend.

And so, asking Holtz to keep their hours of conversation a secret when she told Abby about the apparition in the morning — for this was indubitably going to be a sick-day for them both, work-wise — the pair made their temporary goodbyes.

"See you in a few hours, then," Erin yawned. "God, how am I even going to sleep, thinking about all of this?"

"Well," Holtz crooned coyly, "you don't _need_ any beauty sleep, in my opinion."

Erin laughed, drowsy, and rolled her eyes before shutting them. "Night, Holtzmann," she murmured. An instant peace washed over her, the exhaustion finally kicking in as soon as her head came to touch the pillow.

Holtz, spectral, smiled with a distant look in her eyes, and lifted herself up from the bed. "Sweet dreams," she whispered, before fading away — being dead, she didn't sleep; she could only rest. But even if she could fall asleep, Holtzmann understood, she wouldn't want to. Not unless she was certain to dream of Erin.


End file.
